VLC Media Player Adds NVIDIA RTX Video Super Resolution

Tsing

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VideoLAN has launched a new version of the VLC media player that includes support for RTX Video Super Resolution (VSR), NVIDIA's new technology for upscaling lower-quality video with the help of AI and a deep learning network. VLC 3.0.19 RTX Vetinari is a special version of the "Vetinari" branch of the popular media player with RTX upscaling, VideoLAN has confirmed, and according to the change log, this version of VLC activates VSR upscaling by default on NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs that support the feature (i.e., GeForce RTX 30 and 40 Series). Some users claim that NVIDIA VSR is capable of upscaling video just as well as madVR, the hugely popular video renderer from madshi that allows users to choose from various high-quality upscalers, including the GPU-intensive NGU models, but based on some of the comparisons that have been shared online (1, 2), reception of the results are sure to vary from user to user.

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I see the mention of deep learning networks in this article a lot. Does this require some kind of always on network connectivity to work?
 
If I remember correctly, DLSS uses the tensor cores on RTX cards for its AI deep learning processing.
 
You see I thought that Nvidia ran data through it's own AI farms to process images for best upscaling results and passed those methods through configuration for the local Tensor cores to handle processing of local game data. And if a game wasn't in the DLSS database it wasn't DLSS compatible. Hence why DLSS only works with specific games.

Perhaps that has changed from previous iterations.

BUT...

If VLC is doing it... I think it would be based on content flags of some sort or color saturation of the image to determine the best DLSS method to upscale the image and preserve clarity/detail. I don't see Nvidia running ALL video content through it's farms to teach based on... metadata tags... if they exist. Other than perhaps some new tag that is generated on the new version of VLC. And I wouldn't expect the results to be as good... I mean I would think FSR upscaling in this case might be on par.
 
Grimlakin said:
You see I thought that Nvidia ran data through it's own AI farms to process images for best upscaling results and passed those methods through configuration for the local Tensor cores to handle processing of local game data.
Click to expand...
I think that was true with DLSS 1.0. But it kinda sucked, because it only worked at specific resolutions and ratios that the game happened to be trained on. So 2.0 came out and was a more generic "AI-based upscaler" -- I don't think it really uses any AI that requires training per-game anymore, but does somehow use Tensor cores - so maybe it's a generic AI-assisted upscaler? Maybe they just left AI in the name so it sounds cooler and gives a good excuse to use Tensor cores? Maybe it's really Skynet? I don't know.
 
Some of these questions are answered in NVIDIA's FAQ: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5448/~/rtx-video-super-resolution-faq
NVIDIA said:
Q: Does RTX Video Super Resolution leverage DLSS in any way? Are there any learnings from DLSS that you were able to apply to RTX Video Super Resolution?
A: They are two completely different technologies with different training and data inputs. It does not leverage DLSS technology and is a completely new algorithm. RTX Video Super Resolution infers higher resolution frames based purely on the input / lower resolution video frame. It only works on video content. DLSS uses game engine data (motion vectors, depth buffers, etc) to do Super Resolution and Frame Generation for games. It doesn’t work on streamed video.. DLSS 3 offers DLSS Super Resolution, DLSS Frame Generation, and NVIDIA Reflex low latency and uses motion vectors, optical flow, temporal and other game engine data.
Click to expand...
Also see the external links from Wikipedia's (mostly empty at this time) article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Super_Resolution
 

Doesn't appear to be available on Linux (from what info I've come across so far), and locked to browsers I don't use, so no advantage to me. On the other hand, doesn't seem like I'm missing out on much either. Cool that VLC has it now, and again I wonder if that includes Linux.

The "VSR" initials confuse me, cuz didn't Radeons have tech called VSR that was their equivalent to nVidia's DSR (you know, running a game at a resolution higher than what your display supports, then downscaling it to your display's native res)? So now there's an nVidia VSR and an AMD VSR.


Ah yeah, see, this shiznit: https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/vsr
Which was the AMD equivalent of this: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/technologies/dsr/technology/
"VSR" was already taken nVidia, You should have chosen something else.
 
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